“We have estimated that the additional ladle per day delivered by Preactor, results in an extra US$ 70 million per year on our annual revenue. In addition with the new system of synchronisation the company has obtained a significant improvement due to faster and better decision making on staff allocation and planned maintenance cycles.”

THE USA office of international software firm Preactor Group has today reported outstanding results since opening for business 18 months ago.

Preactor North America, based in Dallas, TX, is the newest wholly-owned subsidiary of worldwide leader in advanced planning and scheduling software Preactor Group.

Thanks to on-the-ground support from the Preactor North America specialists, the Preactor software is now being used by more than 300 US companies across 41 states.

This includes many of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, including Mars, Pepsico, Siemens, Diageo, Goodyear, Pilkington, R Twining, Pratt & Whitney and Eurocopter. There are also numerous SMBs using Preactor to maximise their business productivity, with in excess of 4,000 users worldwide across 75 countries.

Mike Novels, CEO of Preactor North America, said: “Andy Willis, our COO, has done an outstanding job in increasing the visibility of our company in North America, which has resulted in an 83 per cent increase in licence sales and doubling the number of partners who sell, support and implement Preactor for their clients.”

Andy Willis put the success down to the flexibility of Preactor software to be used across a vast range of industries.

“It’s very rare for a solution to have an installed base almost the same in the automotive industry as it is in the food and beverage industry,” he said.

“This indicates how flexible our solution is in handling very different requirements. As a result, we are active in firms ranging from blue-chip multinationals to start-up SMBs across both discrete and process industries. It is also testament to the skills of our partner community who demonstrate time and again that Preactor is capable of providing enormous value to organisations of all sizes across a wide range of industry verticals.”

The Preactor software range includes high-level demand and capacity planning solutions, such as Preactor 400 GMPS, as well as its flagship product, Preactor 400 APS, which offers detailed scheduling applications.

Mars uses both applications to enable it to supply Mars business units worldwide including the USA, EU and Japan. This means it has to manufacture a large number of products with a wide range of possible variations.

Using Preactor has allowed the company to lower stock levels across the entire pipeline. It also enables Mars employees around the globe to see the impacts of every decision on the entire pipeline.

Paul Hazelwood, Supply Logistics Manager for Mars, said: “Preactor GMPS looks at high-level scheduling at a weekly level and ensures that we remain within target levels across all our stock-keeping units.

“From here we export the GMPS data into our Preactor APS, which then handles the detailed scheduling down to what needs to be done, where and when. Once the schedule has been exported to Preactor, we generate a material requirements planning report which we use to order our materials.

“Anyone involved in the pipeline has visibility of it in its entirety, which increases confidence and trust at every level.”

Mike Novels added: “Increasingly, companies are rolling out Preactor solutions within their group around the world.

“The key to this is not only having a solution that fits and can be easily integrated with ERP and MES, but also having access to Preactor offices such as Preactor North America and more than 1,000 accredited partners and Preactor staff worldwide to provide local support, in the local language, in their time zone.”